“You are an understanding man, Preacher.” Rupert blew his nose on a rag.
“I wouldn’t know about that. You ready to head on down to the crick?”
“Yes. I have composed myself.”
The women fussed over Rupert and made a big deal of his wounds, which Preacher considered very minor. But the young officer needed the attention. His morale was very low.
Preacher climbed back up the ridge to keep watch while the women worked on Rupert. He decided to leave the still ill-defined wagon trail and stay to the south of the stolen wagons and kidnapped ladies, who would be following close to the Platte. Preacher had a plan, sort of, but it was a chancy one. He had his bow and quiver of arrows, and planned on some silent killing. He planned to retake the wagons…one at a time.
“You can’t be serious, Preacher?” Rupert questioned him as they rode along, heading slightly south for a few miles before cutting west.
“I’m as serious as death, Rupert. It’s the only way. Once we get twenty or so women freed from them damn trash, we’ll have us a force large enough to mount some sort of attack.”
“But this Bedell person might challenge that by saying if we attack, he’ll start killing the women he still holds.”
“Could be. But do you have a plan that’s better than mine?”
He did not.
“Thought so.”
Rupert looked back at the women, all dressed in men’s britches and riding astride in single file. In just a few short weeks they had undergone a drastic change. They looked…he struggled for the right word…capable; he finally found what he considered to be an apt description. Their shirts were loose-fitting and their hats floppy. Even at a reasonably close distance, unless one made a very careful inspection, they would pass for men.
“My men, Preacher,” Rupert said. “How did they die? I mean…”
“I know what you mean. They died like soldiers, boy. They dug in and fought to the finish. When you make your report, you can say that.”
Rupert gave the mountain man an odd look. He shook his head and tried a small smile. “You really believe that we’ll come out of this alive, don’t you?”
“Hell, yes, I do. This time tomorrow, I’ll start cuttin’ down the odds some.”
“Suppose…just suppose, that the last wagon is driven by one of the women who was in this with Bedell?”
“What about it?”
“Would you kill her?”
“As fast as I would a man. Trash is trash.”
“I don’t know that I could kill a woman,” the young officer admitted.
“Them whory women who tossed in their lot with Bedell and his scum tortured Anna to death, Rupert. They laughed and helped the trashy bastards to do unnatural things to the boys ’fore they killed ’em. I seen what was left of them young boys. And I ain’t goin’ into no details about it. Use your imagination. Them with Bedell is twisted, boy. In the head. And don’t give me no eastern crap about due process and feelin’ sorry for scum. I don’t want to hear it. And get this straight, Rupert: I ain’t takin’ no prisoners. And I ain’t gonna let a damn one of Bedell’s people reach the coast—male or female. Them sorry white trash killed my friends and killed my good horse, Hammer. This is personal, now. And it ought to be for you, too. They’re cold-blooded murderers all. They killed your command. You better make up your mind whether you’re with me all the way. ’Cause in this situation, halfway won’t do it.”
“Amen to that,” Eudora called, riding just behind the two men. “You just let me get that damn Ruby in gunsights. I’ll gut shoot her so fast it’ll billow your mainsail.”
“My word!” Rupert muttered.
“I want that damn Cindy Lou,” Cornelia Biggers called out. “I never did trust her.”
“I got my mind set on Allene,” Claire said, her words containing a hard, bitter edge. “I saw what she did. I see it every night in my dreams. And I’ll not rest easy until she’s rotting in the grave…not that she deserves a grave.”
“Hate is not a good thing,” Rupert said. “‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’”
“Stick your platitudes where the sun doesn’t shine,” Faith told him.
That widened Rupert’s eyes. “There is no need to be coarse, Miss Faith.”
“So how do you think you’d like it if one of Bedell’s men bent you over a wagon tongue and sailed up your stern?” Eudora asked him.
Preacher shook his head at the bluntness of the lady’s words. But she was right in saying it.
“My heavens!” Rupert blurted.
“Now you know what they done to some of them young boys, Rupert,” Preacher told him. “So shut up and get your mind set for killin’. We got to be just as cold-blooded and hard as them we fight. If we’re not, then we’ll lose. And that’s all there is to it, boy. That’s the sum total.”
“I think my overall education has been sadly lacking in some respects,” Rupert admitted.
“Before this is all over,” Preacher told him, “I figure you’ll have earned several more diplomas.
“I’m very afraid you are going to be correct,” Rupert said, his tone quite dry. “Although the subject matter might be a bit suspect.”
“The Army’s liable to make you one of them highfalutin’ generals after all this is over, Rupert.”
“What I’ll probably get is a courts-martial,” Rupert muttered.
“Cheer up, Rupert,” Eudora called. “You can always transfer over to the navy…. After the army lets you out of jail.”
14
“Just like I figured,” Preacher muttered. He had left the others well-hidden about two miles south while he headed for the Platte. “Stayin’ right on the trail.” He had not been too worried about Bedell putting outriders very far from the wagons. With the supplies on hand, they really didn’t have to hunt, except occasionally, when they wanted a taste of fresh meat.
Preacher waited until the last wagon had passed, then he hightailed it back to the others. “Let’s go, people. This time tomorrow, we’ll have spilled some of their blood…for a change,” he added, a grim note to the words.
The party took off, heading west for some ten miles, then cutting straight north. They reached the Platte River—which would later be dubbed as “too thick to drink and too thin to plow” by the westward-bound flow of settlers—and Preacher selected his ambush site.
He fixed a small fire out of dry, virtually smokeless wood, and venison steaks, but from a deer that Preacher had killed with an arrow that day, were soon cooking.
Rupert watched Preacher carefully going over his arrows. “What in the world are you doing?”
“I got to make the first shot count, boy. I can’t let him or her scream. Gurgle or moan is all right, but screamin’ is definitely out.”
“Where do you plan on shooting the person?”
“Right through the throat. All they can do is moan soft and gurgle some.”
Rupert swallowed hard at just the thought.
“Or,” Preacher said, “I might take a chance and get on the wagon through the rear and cut his throat. Or her throat. Whatever. I’ll just have to see what it looks like. Them steaks is done. Let’s eat.”
Preacher had dug up some tubers and wild onions and with the meat, he considered the meal quite a feast. Most of the others were less than exhilarated over the meal but ate it down without complaint.
“I have seen tubers that weighed as much as thirty pounds,” Preacher said. “That’d feed us all for a week, wouldn’t it?”
“A thirty-pound potato?” Rupert asked. “Now, come on, Preacher!”
“Oh, it’s true. Injuns call the tater from the wild ‘tater vine man of the earth.’ Staple food for lots of tribes.” Preacher dug in his bag and handed them all what looked like thin, dried roots. “After supper, chew some of these. They’re right good.”